Classic Poem

CANTO XI

O N the edge of a circle of great broken stones
Rimming a cliff, we came above the place
Wherein are packed worse sins and deeper groans.
And here, because of the horrible excess
Of stench thrown upward from the unfathomed pit,
We approached, for refuge from its noisesomeness,
Behind a monument, whereon was writ:
" Pope Anastasius is here immured;
Photinus drew him the true path to quit. "
" We must delay, till somewhat be inured
Our sense to the vile reek, ere we descend:
Then shall it be more easily endured. "
So spoke the Master. " That our time we spend
Not vainly, " I said, " some compensation find. "
And he: " Thou seest that I so intend. "
" Son, " he continued, " within these stones wind
Three circlets, going down in three degrees,
Even like those which thou hast left behind.
They are all filled with spirits accurst: of these
That sight hereafter alone suffice thee, know
Wherefore and how the pangs upon them seize.
Of all malice that finds of Heaven a foe
The end is injury, and all such end won
By force or fraud worketh another's woe.
But since fraud is a vice of man's alone,
It more offends God: so are lowest set
The fraudulent, and the heavier is their groan.
All the first circle is for the violent; yet,
As violence in its object is threefold,
It is in three rings built, each separate.
To God, oneself, one's neighbour, it is told,
May violence be done, both to their things
And to themselves, as I shall clearly unfold.
Force on one's neighbour death and torment brings,
And on his goods fire, ravage and reverse
Of fortune, and the hurt extortion wrings.
The first round, then, tortures all murderers,
And, each kind separate, those who with intent
Of malice strike; robbers and plunderers.
A man may to himself be violent
And to his own; in the next round, therefore,
Must every prisoner in vain repent
Who robs himself of your world, wastes his store
Of wealth, gambles and squanders till all's gone
And, where he should rejoice, is sour and sore.
Violence against the Deity may be done
In the heart denying and blaspheming blind;
In Nature, too, spurning his benison.
The smallest ring hath therefore sealed and signed
For its own both Sodom's and Cahors' offence,
And all who speak with scorn of God in mind.
Fraud, which so gnaweth at all men's conscience,
A man may use on one who trusts him best
And on him also who risks no confidence.
This latter mode seems only to arrest
The love which Nature meaneth to endure;
Hence in the second circle huddled nest
Hypocrisy, flattery; they who would conjure
By spells; and simony; the thief, the cheat,
Pandars and barrators, and the like ordure.
In the other mode mankind the love forget
Which Nature makes, and that love's after-dower
Which doth the special trust and faith beget.
Hence in the smallest circle, at the core
Of the Universe, where Dis in darkness reigns,
Each traitor is consumed for evermore. "
And I: " Most clearly thy discourse explains,
Master, distinguishing by class and class,
This pit and all the people it contains.
But tell me: those clogged in the slab morass,
Those whom the wind drives and the hard rain galls,
And they whom mutual cursing tongues harass,
Why are they not in the red city's walls
Chastised, if to God's anger they be prey?
And if not, why the woe that them befalls? "
And he to me: " Now wherefore goes astray
Thy wit beyond its wont? or is thy thought
On other things and turned another way?
Recall the words thou surely hast not forgot
In which thy Ethics makes the matter plain
Of the three dispositions God wills not,
Incontinence, and malice, and insane
Bestiality; and how incontinence less
Displeaseth God and less blame doth obtain.
If rightly to regard this thou address
Thy mind, recalling who are they who smart
Above there, in that outer wilderness,
Thou wilt perceive why they are placed apart
From these fell spirits, and why with gentler blow
The Divine Justice hammereth their heart. "
" O Sun, who healest all troubled vision, and so
Contentest me where thou dost certify,
That to doubt pleaseth not less than to know,
Turn thee now yet a little back, " said I,
" To where thou sayest that usury doth offend
The divine goodness, and the knot untie. "
" Philosophy, to him who will attend, "
Said he, " in divers places hath discerned
How Nature her example and her end
From Divine Intellect and its art hath learned.
And to thy Physics if good heed thou pay,
Thou wilt find, after but few pages turned,
That your art follows her, far as it may,
As scholar his master, so that your art is
Of the Godhead the grandchild, so to say.
By these two, if thy memory Genesis
Recalls, and its beginning, man hath need
To gain his bread and foster earthly bliss.
But the usurer, since he will not thus proceed,
Flouts Nature's follower and herself also,
Setting his wealth another way to breed.
But follow now, for I am willed to go.
The Fishes quiver on the horizon air,
And over Caurus all the Wain lies low.
Far on it is where we descend the stair. "